Yesterday I felt so tired that I actually fell asleep in my power chair at the medical building, while waiting for the LIFT bus.  However I did make my first four successful transfers, using a quad cane, away from home: to and from the examining couch, and to and from a toilet.  Today, Jeannie, (shower-aide) has come and gone, and Arvilla (PT) is due in thirty minutes.  I feel very tired, and I want to get some rest, as the NH returns are tonight.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 4:31).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

In case you forgot:

Woooo Hoooo!!!!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Hurricane Sandy opportunist and all-around overgrown bully Governor Chris Christie has been sitting on a bill that would cut out citizens from the decision process concerning whether or not their drinking water is privatized. Wait no longer, New Jersey. Yesterday, the Garden State’s AWOL governor signed the ironically named “Water Infrastructure Protection Act”—the irony is that it protects water from the people who drink it but not from being obliterated by private interests and the one percent’s whims.

Knowing PIGnocchio, NJ folks are likely to get their drinking water pumped direct from the Atlantic Ocean, New York Harbor, or worse.

From The New Yorker: The former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is hoping to jump-start his lagging Presidential campaign with a new television ad featuring the worst President in U.S. history, campaign aides confirm.

With the crucial New Hampshire primary just hours away, the Bush campaign believes it can finish strong by reminding voters of Jeb’s connection to a man who left the nation in smoldering ruins.

In the ad, which Bush aides are calling “a fantastic closing argument,” Jeb’s ability to keep the United States safe and create peace around the world is praised by the President, whose decisions helped destabilize the Middle East and give rise to ISIS.

Across the state, the ad featuring the worst President in U.S. history is making a powerful impression on voters.

Andy isn’t kidding!! Here’s the ad!

Double Bush Barf Bag Alert!!

Crawford Caligula also brought us 9/11!  Strike Three is soooo toast!!

From NY Times: The former New Hampshire governor John Sununu once said that “Iowa picks corn and New Hampshire picks presidents.”

This year, New Hampshire may not live up to the billing — but it should nonetheless play a big role.

If the polls are anywhere near right Tuesday, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders will win the state, perhaps in landslides. Yet neither seems especially likely to win the nomination.

This is not to diminish the appeal of Mr. Sanders or Mr. Trump. Last summer, few could have predicted that they would be leading in every New Hampshire poll by at least seven percentage points during the final week of the race.

Go, Bernie, Go! Stop, Hairball, Stop!

Cartoon:

In today’s Republican Party, he would be classified as moderate.

Today is the highest Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, so on a scale of one to ten I plan to be bad… very bad!!  Pizza order!!  Yum!!  Tomorrow I have a podiatry appointment, so I’ll be posting an Open Thread, at most.  Go Broncos!!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:35 (average 6:51).  To do it, click here,  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos (classic 6/2014): Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer is no dummy. He sees the writing on the wall.

I’d strongly suggest you read this entire piece titled "The pitchforks are coming . . . for us Plutocrats"

And what do I see in our future now?

I see pitchforks.

At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

Today this piece is even more relevant than it was then. Click through to read it in its entirety.

From NY Times: An opportunity to pass the most significant federal criminal justice reform in a generation may be slipping away — despite the tireless efforts of many top Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as a rare exhortation from President Obama during last month’s State of the Union address.

The bill, known as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, is the product of years of negotiation over how best to roll back the imprisonment spree of the past four decades, a period in which the federal prison population grew from just under 25,000 to more than 195,000.

Among other features, the act would reduce absurdly long mandatory minimum sentences for many nonviolent drug crimes, give judges more control over the terms of punishment and provide inmates with more opportunities to get out early by participating in rehabilitation programs….

…So what’s the problem? There are two, in fact — and both are serious threats to the bill’s chances of passage.

First, some congressional Republicans now say they will approve the bill only if it includes an across-the-board change in federal law that would make corporations and their executives harder to prosecute for environmental or financial crimes by imposing a new intent, or “mens rea,” standard on these crimes…

…It is already very difficult to prosecute corporate wrongdoers. A report released late last month by Senator Elizabeth Warren documented 20 cases from 2015 alone in which corporations or their executives broke the law but got off with little or no punishment, even when people died as a result of the violations. Speaking from the Senate floor on Wednesday, Ms. Warren called the push for the new intent provision “shameful because we’re already way too easy on corporate lawbreakers.”

The other obstacle to the reform bill’s passage is old-fashioned scaremongering about the release of “violent criminals” into the streets. This is simply not true: Most of the provisions are focused on low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, who make up nearly half of all federal inmates.

Senator Ted Cruz is leading this attack on the new bill. Yet just last year he called mandatory minimum drug sentences “unfair and ineffective,” and he sponsored reforms that would have reduced those sentences even more than the current bill does. Running for president on a hard-right platform has, apparently, changed his mind.

The sentencing reform legislation is not perfect, but it represents remarkable progress in what is often a harsh, oversimplified debate about crime and punishment in America. It should not be weakened, either by narrowing its reach or by sneaking in an unrelated mens rea provision.

The problem with this bill is that it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough but between Koch sucking members of Congress and TRUS "Uranus Inspector" Ted, we probably lose even this pitifully small step forward.

From Alternet: Bernie Sanders’ much-anticipated cameo on Saturday Night Live along-side host Larry David did not disappoint.

This is not the video included with the article. That has been taken down. I hope this one fares better.

Which Bernie is Bernier?

Cartoon:

After the game!

Yesterday my helper=friend could not come, and that screwed up my schedule.  I have lots of house work to do.  I need to stay up late to watch the debate on MSNBC.  It will have one bad moderator, Chuck Todd, and one fantastic moderator, Rachel Maddow.  This will be today’s only article, and I will it be sending cards on Care2.  That way, I get some rest.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:20 (average 4:45).  Birdie for kitty-lunch?  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: I have always been a fan of Jimmy Carter, and once more he hits it out of the park. As reported today by the Guardian, here is what he has to say about the effect of money on our American political system, post Iowa caucuses:

Former US president Jimmy Carter has warned that US politics has been corrupted by billions of dollars of campaign financing following a supreme court ruling that he said legalised “bribery”.

He described the landmark 2010 Citizens United court decision, which equated campaign spending with free speech, as an “erroneous ruling”.

Speaking after the Iowa caucuses, in which Republican candidates spent $43m on TV advertising and Democratic candidates spent $16.8m, Carter said the domination of money in politics represented the biggest change since he was elected president in 1976.

SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) is wrong. Money is NOT speech!!

From The New Yorker: Declaring that “my time has come,” the former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum announced today that he was officially launching his 2020 campaign for President.

“Washington is broken, and I’ve got some fresh new ideas about how to fix it,” Santorum told a small clutch of supporters and whatever family members were available, at an intimate rally in Des Moines. “Once the people of this great nation hear those ideas, there’s no stopping me.”

“I’m in it to win it!” he exclaimed, to some clapping.

Launching his campaign in Iowa, where the next Presidential caucuses will not be held for another forty-eight months, Santorum brushed aside suggestions that he was entering the race too early. “You’ll have to take that up with Jesus Christ,” he said. “He’s the guy who told me to do this.”

Andy, did he slip and fall down in his own froth?

From Alternet: Hungry for a bloodbath? Good, that's exactly what the election is, and guys Stephen Colbert are just waiting for candidates to stumble. Last night Colbert paid tribute to those who had fallen after the Iowa Caucus, as well as one who should have.

The script must have been written before frothy was flushed. That would have been hilarious!

Cartoon:

I have another very busy day today.  Jeannie (shower-aide) will arrive momentarily.  Arvilla (PT) is coming at 10 AM.  I have the Monthly Report to compose.  I need to set up a schedule for PT and OT after home health ends.  And I need to make a run to my bank.  Now Jeannie just left, and I’m the kind of kitty that’s fun to pet.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:21 (average 5:50).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: In an apparent attempt to set a new world’s record for projection, House Republicans are now accusing Democrats of wasting millions of dollars of the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s money on partisan nonsense.

Talk about partisan nonsense!

Barf Bag Alert!!

Forming the committee just to beat Hillary is partisan nonsense!

From The New Yorker: Senator Ted Cruz’s stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses is serving as a beacon of hope to despised people across the nation, a number of disliked Americans confirmed on Monday.

In interviews from coast to coast, dozens of pariahs said that the Cruz triumph meant that “the sky’s the limit” for widely hated people like them.

Andy is reporting news again.

From NY Times: Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont were locked in an intensely tight race in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday as Mrs. Clinton’s strong support among women and older voters was matched by the passionate liberal foot soldiers whom Mr. Sanders has been calling to political revolution.

The close results were deeply unnerving to Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, as well as her advisers, some of whom had expressed growing confidence in recent days that they had recaptured political momentum after weeks when Mr. Sanders was drawing huge crowds and rising in the polls. The Clintons had appeared optimistic at rallies over the weekend, thanking Iowans for their support as much as urging them to turn out to vote.

The close vote means that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders are likely to split Iowa’s share of delegates to the Democratic convention, and Mr. Sanders will be able to argue that the Iowa result was a virtual tie.

I did not like watching a Hillary supported lying to uncommitted voters that Bernie favors a flat tax, and I thought Hillary’s victory announcement was disingenuous.  Since then Hillary has subsequently been declared the winner, and she gets 23 delegates to Bernie’s 21.

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